This invention relates to containers for receiving and storing an elongated strip of flexible material.
Telex machines commonly utilize punched paper tapes for the purpose of sending messages or information between remote locations. An operator first types the message to be sent on a keyboard; the Telex machine simultaneously punches the coded message onto oil-impregnated paper tape which is fed from a blank roll. After the punching of the message has been completed, the information-containing strip of tape is detached from the remainder of the roll and may thereafter be fed into the Telex machine reader for transmission of the message over telephone lines to another machine at a remote location.
As the paper tape leaves the Telex puncher, the present practice is to permit the tape merely to fall to the floor or other underlying surface or into a wastebasket or the like in a random fashion. This sometimes results in the inadvertent folding or tearing of the tape which renders the same unusable for subsequent reading and information transmission. In addition, the oil-impregnated composition of the paper tape facilitates the adherence to and collection on its surface of dust and dirt from the floor or wastebasket and this dust and dirt accumulates in the sensing element of the Telex reader necessitating its frequent cleaning and occasionally fouling or damaging the tape reader mechanism.
Since the punch tape must be fed into the reader in the same order, or direction or sequence in which the same was prepared, it is necessary to locate the leading end or beginning of the tape to enable the reading and information transmission to occur. This manual locating operation can be extremely time consuming where a particularly lengthy strip of tape has been prepared since great care must be taken to insure against any form of damage to the tape strip. Although the use of a reel to initially collect the tape as it leaves the perforator or puncher would substantially obviate problems of accidental mutilation, such reels do not provide access to the beginning of the tape and a separate, time-consuming, rewinding operation would therefore be required in order to prepare the reel-stored tape for reading and data transmission.
It is well known to those skilled in the art to store flexible tape in an accordion-like manner whereby a plurality of overlapping, contiguous, serpentine folds or loops enable a long length or strip of flexible elongated material to be maintained in a small and compact volume of space. In addition to the spatial efficiencies thereby achievable, such a method provides the advantage of storing the tape in a safe and easily retrievable manner that substantially protects the strip against inadvertant or accidental damage during storage or removable operations. The prior art discloses a number of structures for accordion-like storage of both continuous loops and noncontinuous strips or lengths of a flexible tape.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,889,491 to MacDonald is exemplary of such art, disclosing a tape storage bin wherein tape is stored in a serpentine or accordion-like fashion in adjacently positioned storage compartments. However, in the MacDonald apparatus there is no provision for gaining access to either end of the tape strip and no suggestion that such access is either necessary or desirable within the disclosed magnetic tape memory application.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,508,696 to Taylor teaches a tape basket similar to that described in MacDonald. The Taylor structure includes a removable bottom portion or end to enable a user to retrieve the leading edge of the tape for threading the same through a separately-provided exit opening. Initial feeding of tape into the Taylor storage basket, however, requires the user to manually insert into the basket and manipulate therein a "rake-like device" so as to properly position the tape leading edge for subsequent retrieval and prevent initial disruption of the serpentine folding of the stored tape. It is clear that such a manual insertion and manipulation operation would be extremely difficult or impossible for a user to accomplish while he simultaneously punches the Telex message onto the paper tape. Removal of the bottom portion of the Taylor basket to retrieve the tape leading edge and reposition the same for removal would, in addition, be disadvantageously time-consuming and might, without the exercise of a great degree of care, result in disruption in the accordion-like folds of the remainder of the tape and consequent damage thereto.